


Blood and Family

by DogStar234



Series: Black Bargain Verse [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Gen Work, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Walburga Black's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 14:55:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DogStar234/pseuds/DogStar234
Summary: There was nothing special about the July day that Sirius got burned off of his family’s tapestry.Part of my Black Bargain verse, but stand alone and fits in with canon.





	Blood and Family

There was nothing special about the July day that Sirius got burned off of his family’s tapestry.

It was a summer night with a bit of a chill, spitting with rain, but not enough to get an umbrella or an impervious charm out, it just soaked through to your bones.

Sirius was out wandering the streets of Islington, stopping at an off-license for cigs and haribo sweets.

He alternated between the two as he made his way past Highbury fields and back home, hoping that his parents were still at his Aunt’s house.

He wasn’t so lucky. His mother was waiting at the front parlour, arms crossed, sipping at expensive wine.

“Did I give you leave to go roaming through streets in my absence?” she asked, her voice dangerously causal.

“I’ll be an adult in a few months, and I’ve never wanted your leave for anything,” he snapped.

“You’re still under my roof, and I won’t have you walking around looking like a filthy muggle,” she said, gesturing to his outfit.

“I look cool,” he said, hanging his leather jacket up on the 400-year-old-coat rack.

“You look disgusting,” she replied. “Kreacher!” she shouted. “Go get Regulus down here.”

The elf returned in a moment with his brother, clearly pulled out of bed, sleep-rumpled face. He looked much younger in his nightclothes than he did in his regular pureblood regalia, and Sirius felt nostalagic for a moment for when Regulus felt like his brother.

“Welcome back, mother,” Regulus mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

“Why didn’t you stop _him_ , you know he’s not allowed to venture in Muggle London?”

“Like _Regulus_ would be able to stop me,” Sirius muttered, trying to push past her to go to his room.

“Did I say you were excused?” 

He sighed, and readied an argument, but she summoned his wand away from him instead and tossed it on the floor.

“You’ll get it back after you listen to me,” she replied. “Since neither of you asked, I had a lovely time at your Aunt Druella’s.”

Regulus made some interested noises, but Sirius could not have been any less bothered, and rolled his eyes.

“We listened to a wonderfully powerful wizard talk about the denigration of our world, and how he’s going to make magic mighty again,” she continued.

Sirius folded his arms. “Was it Voldemort? What did he want?”

She ignored him. “He wanted what all good witches and wizards want, and now, I feel a renewed calling to the purity of our world, only to come home and see my first born son smelling of muggle filth.”

“I’ll take a shower,” Sirius said with a sigh, trying to pick up his wand. He got a sharp jab from her wand to his hand instead.

“I’m not finished,” Walburga insisted, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Like I said, I feel a renewed calling to our name, and my sons will come with me next time.”

“I’ll come over my dead body,” Sirius replied. 

“I’ve been far too lenient with you for far too long, boy,” she said. “I’ve let some things slide because of your magical talent and high marks, but you’ll stop bringing shame on this family and promote our cause.”

“ _Our_ cause?” Sirius yelled. “Have you not been reading the papers, he’s a killer!”

She scoffed. “Only mudbloods and muggles.”

“I know muggle-borns that are worth ten of you.”

She laughed, and Sirius knew he was in trouble.

“I’m thinking six lashes,” she said casually, as if discussing the weather. “One for each year you’ve brought shame to your family at Hogwarts.”

“Fine,” Sirius said, bracing himself for the lash of her magical whip. But he it didn’t come.

She walked around him for a second, grabbing his chin with her hands. “This will hurt me more than it hurts you.”

“I doubt it,” Sirius replied. 

She backhanded him, one of her rings deliberately catching against his lip. She saw she drew blood, and did it again.

He didn’t even wince and stood straight as she walked behind him. Sirius took a deep breath, but instead he heard her shout _”Excorio!”_.

He felt a cursed line flay across his back, like it was on fire. He couldn’t help but cry out in pain, it burned and bled and was a million times worse than the whip.

“One,” Sirius said, daring her to continue.

She did it again, and again, and again, and again until one of the curses got a little too close to his neck, he heard Regulus make a small noise of complaint. 

Sirius shoved his hand in his mouth to keep from sobbing, steadying himself against the antique armchair with his other hand. If he could just windlessly summon his wand back from the floor, it could all be over. He wondered how much blood a wizard could lose before they died and if he was getting close.

“Don’t you think you’ve made your point?” Regulus said, his voice only shaking a little. Sirius wondered if he might actually sick up.

Walburga lifted her wand to point it toward him instead, and Sirius spat blood on the floor, aiming it toward the hem of her robe, directing her attention back to him.

“What do you think it’ll do to the family name if you actually kill him?” Regulus pleaded, as Sirius swayed on his feet from blood loss.

“Do it,” Sirius dared her. “And the entire world can see what a monster you are, killing your first-born child.”

Walburga raised her eyebrows, and spun on her feet, point her wand toward the tapesty instead of Sirius. “You’re no child of mine,” she said before burning his name off of it. 

It hurt less than the curse, but Sirius still felt a strange, hollow pain inside of his chest.

But mostly, he felt relief that she wasn’t actually going to kill him. 

Sirius took one careful step in front of the other, and made his way toward the door, bending over to pick up his wand off the floor. He threw his leather jacket over his torn-open back and zipped it up, covering up his wounds.

“Just where do you think you’re going, boy?” she asked him. 

“If I’m not your family, you can’t keep me here,” Sirius snapped back. 

“Good riddance to bad rubbish then,” she said, gesturing grandly to the door.

Sirius walked ahead, not sparing a look behind him to his mother or brother. He vowed to never come back to this hell-hole again, and held his wand out for the Knight Bus. 

He had 25 pounds, 3 galleons, 4 sickles and a knut to his name, enough to get to where he was going, but nothing else.

“St. Mungos?” the conductor asked, his face blurring. 

“No,” Sirius insisted. “Take me to Potters Hall near Cheltenham as soon as possible.”

“It’ll be a galleon to skip the queue,” he responded, eyes gazing over his cut lip and muggle jacket.

“I don’t care,” Sirius said, and meant it.

In no time at all, he was at the front gate at the Potters. He flicked the galleons at the conductor, and one foot in front of the other, made it to the door.

Sirius wanted to run, but he didn’t think he could, his legs felt like they were made out of lead.

He knocked on the door, banging wildly. He lifted the brass knocker again, praying to gods he didn’t believe in that they woke up and let him in. Jamie could sleep through the apocalypse, but maybe he was still up?

The door swung open eventually, but it was Mrs. Potter who answered. She was wearing a long nightdress, thick reading glasses, and held her wand high, shining a bright light in his face.

“Sirius?” she asked after a moment.

“Is Jamie home, Mrs. Potter?” 

“Of course he is, darling,” she said, opening the door wider to let him in. “Come on inside, you’ll catch a chill.”

He nodded, steadying himself against the doorframe to keep upright. She noticed, and her hazel eyes, same as Jamie’s, blazed with anger for a moment before settling into something calmer.

“This wasn’t from dueling or a fight, was it?” she asked quietly.

“No, Mrs. Potter,” he admitted. 

“Right. Come with me, darling, hang onto my arm, and we’ll make it to the ground floor bath, and get you cleaned up and some pain potions into you, alright? You must be in a lot of pain.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, but she saw right through him.

He gave up and carefully took her arm, and let Mrs. Potter guide him into the small, tiled room, take a seat on a little bench next to the guest bath.

She opened a mirrored cabinet, and handed him a foul-smelling liquid he recognised as pain-reliever from his time at the Hospital Wing.

“It’ll take the edge off and should fight off any early internal infections,” she said, voice matter-of-fact.

“Don’t worry about me,” Sirius insisted.

“You’re about as steady on your feet as the time Jamie broke into his great-uncle’s firewhiskey collection, which by that I mean, not at all,” she joked, summoning a flannel to wipe at his face. She was so gentle with him.

“I’d like to hear about that,” Sirius joked.

“It was very funny, he was doing very bad, very loud impressions of everyone until he spent the rest of the night with his head in the toilet, poor darling,” she explained. “How about you have a sip of that potion, hmm?”

He nodded, and at her prodding, took a swig of the pain potion, making a face at the taste.

“I want you to have another sip of that, and I’m going to go tell Mr. Potter you’re here, and wake my son up. Where else are you hurt?”

He shook his head, careful not to disturb the open wounds on his back. He didn’t want her to look at them, his bruised and bleeding face was bad enough.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute—I promise. Take another sip of that potion, I know it’s foul, but it’ll help.”

Sirius did, and rested his eyes for a moment afterwards, cradling his head in his hands. She was kinder than he deserved. He closed his eyes again, and woke to panicked dulcet tones of his best friend.

“Padfoot?” James said, big eyes blinking up at him, his mum right behind him. “You look like shite, what happened?”

He shook his head and winced. “I look better than you.”

“Usually, but not today, mate,” James said quietly, walking closer. He went to put a comforting hand on the small of Sirius’s back, and he hissed from the pain of it.

“Let’s get that jacket off, okay?” James asked, peeling his precious jacket off his body, putting in gently on the floor. His tight white undershirt was covered in blood and sticking to him painfully.

Jamie and his mum were whispering something, but he couldn’t concentrate well enough to overhear.

“We’re going to have to banish the shirt,” Mrs. Potter warned him. “Is that okay?”

He shrugged, the easy motion feeling like the Cruciatus. 

Mrs. Potter pointed her wand at him, and he put his hands in front of his face, but it didn’t hurt when the shirt disappeared from his body.

James whispered something to his mum, and she touched his face in the most, gentle, loving way he had ever seen. No one had ever touched him like that.

“We’ll get you cleaned up and healed in no time,” Mrs. Potter said, her face all business. “Was this the Flaying Curse or several Cutting spell tailoured to stop clotting?”

“The former,” Sirius managed to say. It was a medieval punishment for thieves and assault, all he had done was go for a walk.

“Thank you for telling me, this is within my power to stop,” she replied. “I’m going to do the countercurse to stem the bleeding, while Jamie here puts some murtlap essence on to stop the risk of infection and scarring, alright?”

Sirius blinked at her.

“Sirius, darling, I’m not performing any more magic on you tonight without your consent. I’d like to help, but I won’t unless you tell me I’m allowed to,” she said, her voice so kind.

“Do what you think is best,” he said. “I trust you,” and he did.

James squeezed his hand. “You’re going to be fine.” 

If Jamie said it, it must be true.

“You’re being very brave, but I need you to stay upright a little longer until we can stop the curse,” Mrs. Potter said, before handing Jamie a clean flannel and a jar of murtlap essence.

“I can do that,” he said, taking a deep breath. James’s hands only shook a little as he wiped the blood from his back, the murtlap stinging on its way. 

Mrs. Potter raised her wand hand and start chanting, a golden glow flowing from her wand to his body. He could feel the countercurse fighting the dark embedded in his back, and he bit his broken lip to keep from crying out again.

“What happened, Padfoot?”

He looked down toward the tile. “Just a little disagreement with my Mother.”

Mrs. Potter made the same angry noise James did, before getting back to the countercurse.

James reached out to tuck an errant lock of hair behind his ear, taking a break from cleaning his wounds. He didn’t know he could be so gentle, James was usually like a force, a hurricane of movement. “We’re almost done, okay?”

Sirius nodded, and the Potters continued their magic, until the pain in his back ebbed down from a sharp, stinging to a more dull ache.

“It shouldn’t scar much,” Mrs. Potter said. “Have Jamie help you with the murtlap for the rest of the summer, and it’ll take care of that.”

Sirius’s heart jumped. “The rest of the summer?”

“Do you think either of us are letting you go back to the Blacks after this?” James said, folding his arms across his chest.

“It’s only a few weeks till term time,” Sirius said. “Thank you.”

James scoffed. “Term time? You’re coming back here for Christmas and Easter hols and whenever you like.”

Sirius looked up toward Mrs. Potter. 

“Jamie always wanted a brother, but we couldn’t give him one. Fleamont and I would be delighted to welcome you into our home.”

Jamie always got what he wanted, Sirius didn’t know why he felt so overwhelmed. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Sirius mumbled.

“Mate, we actually do,” James responded. “I’ve asked them before, and I was working on a plan of breaking you out of there if you didn’t come visit before the end of the summer anyway.”

“It’s no hardship at all, darling, we love having you around,” Mrs. Potter added. “We’ll set up your bedroom in the morning, alright?”

Sirius nodded, and accepted James’s help to his feet.

They got up the stairs and to Jamie’s room, and he was only a little embarrassed when James had to help him out of his shoes and dirty jeans. 

When he was in his boxers, James held the duvet open for him and Sirius collapsed onto his stomach, his back in too much pain to sleep the way he usually did.

James got in next to him, and touched his face, the same way he saw Mrs. Potter do to her son earlier.

Sirius leaned into the warmth of his fingers, and hated himself a little for being so needy.

“They don’t deserve you, mate,” James told him, and Sirius nodded, the small motion making him ache all over again.

“I’ll get Dad to make us a fry-up in the morning, then maybe we can run into the muggle town, and I have tornados tickets for the next match,” James mumbled. Sirius let himself be lulled to sleep by the easy babbling of his best friend’s voice.

Nothing else could hurt him here. He was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, new Black Bargain update in the next few days, I just needed to get this out first. Comments/kudos welcome, as well as chatting with me about Sirius & James in the comments section x  
> \--J


End file.
